clearly we have a bought one. time to change that. our show starts right now. well, the big story today, whether we like it or not, round 4. right now congressional leaders walking back into the white house for the fourth straight day of debt talks with president obama. it is hump day here in new york city, and across this great land. i am dylan ratigan. a pleasure to be seeing you. debt negotiators have yet to get over their trillion dollar hump and agree on a debt deal to keep our nation functional, the president stepping up the fearmongering, warning that seniors may not be able to get their social security check next month if congress does not act. quite simply, that would not happen. on the gop side, speaker boehner said any deal would be a crapshoot. house majority leader eric

cantor, king of the prowrestlers these days, a leading voice emerging, aligning with the extremely far right idea logically prime minister study committee, in guarantees another job-killing debt crisis. that's a good talking point. i think most notably we'll stop spending on pod people or -- does that make sense to you? keep in mind just 58% of u.s. adults have a job as it is. nbc's mike viqueira is live outside that white house meeting. mike, any conversation in that room about actually cancelling some of this debt? >> reporter: well, first of all, let me start with some quotes from the speaker john boehner. it seems appropriate as they're getting ready to walk back into the west wing, amid a lightning storm here for the fourth conservative day. the question is, what's changed between sunday and wednesday? if you listen to white house officials behind the scenes,

they would say there is some momentum, actually jay carney said that today on camera, but it's unclear where it is. one area where we know it is is the biggest sticking point, remains taxes. john boehner, a small group of reporters in the capitol. he said -- dealing with them the last couple months is like dealing with jell-o. some days it's firmer than others. sometimes it's like they've left it out overnight. by saturday, he also said, they -- being the white house and officials on the democratic side -- spent the previous day and a half just going backwards. so not positive comments, for certain, but notwithstanding all of the background noise about this division in the republican house conference between the two laiders john boehner and eric cantor, the president is still negotiating with john boehner. yes, there was that reported sharp exchange, the president saying just who am i negotiating with? what the gop wants the president

to do right now is if the president is behind entitlement reforms, saying it publicly, say specifically what you want to do, because we are never going to get to 218 votes in the house and avert a catastrophe as the president put it, and increasing number of republicans and outside business groups are fearing is coming down the pike. then put what you want to do on the table in terms of entitlement. we will never get the votes unless there are more firm commitments. that's the context heading into the negotiations. >> how many more days do you think this will be the big news? >> i think they'll be here all week and perhaps the weekend. >> mike, thank you for your reporting, as always, we appreciate it. congressman ron paul serves on the financial services committee, where he chairs the subcommittee on domestic and monetary policy. he's also not seeking reelection in the house of representatives to focus his ambition solely on his run for the white house as a potential republican nominee for

that candidacy, and congressman paul, a delight to have you back here. >> thank you. >> give me any sense of why we're not cancelling some of this debt -- >> well, that would interrupt things and expos the fed for some of the tricks they play, so they're not interested in it. i was very pleased. i did get a fair amount of attention on the internet, praising this idea that it was sort of a painless way of solving the problem, but it's really only temporary, too, because you don't want to do that permanently, but if you wanted a year reprieve and maybe the american people would get this congress serious about straightening up their act, getting it together and bringing it under control, but yes, i suggested it's not a real debt. they create money office thin air and treasury bills, so the taxpayer has to continue to work hard to pay interest and pay the interest to the federal reserve.

if you dismiss that debt of $1.6 trillion and that payment came off, all of a sudden we would get a reprieve. the only thing i think is dangerous about that, they'll take it like oh, boy, i can get back to spending again and we don't have any pressure on us to solve the problem, but it would solve the problem of no need to close the government down and we wouldn't have to threaten people and say the social security checks won't be out. >> and i think it's a great way of making the point that people forget, which is that the central bank is the instrument by which we are financing our own national borrowing at the treasury department. we're lending ourselves our own money that we're making up on a comput computer. >> it's fraud and deceiving the people. iron today, before bernanke, the financial service committee, i brought up the subject again, there's a lot of people at fault, all this special

interest, the war's going on, and the members of congress who are vying for power and buying vot votes, but ultimately none of that would happen if the fed wasn't there ready to buy whoever is necessary to have a fixed interest rate. usually it's much lower than it should be. therefore they allow this process to go on. i want, and i truly believe, if you didn't have a fed responding in that way, yes, interest rates would go up and a lot of people would worry about it, but the whole burden would be on the congress. the congress would say, the more we intend, the higher of interest rates go up. we shouldn't be having this much dead. i think we would all act more responsibly, so i think the fed in many ways it a crutch, and i'd like to break that up a bit. that's why i suggested that we not feel obligated to pay this debt off to the federal reserve. >> the other aspect of that, i suppose, is that this is a complex problem, and yes, that

doing what you want to do with the federal reserve could be a very good way to make the point and begin the process of having to do bampg restructuring that would catalyze a lot list. >> there would be other reforms and some criticized my suggestion this would take took place away from the fed, because the fed might want to withdraw funds from, you know, the banks, which i would rather doubt. they're not about to do that, from bernanke's testimony today, there's no intentions anywhere soon to do that, but you could adjust that problem by just raising reserve requirements, if they want to remain in the business of manipulating you know, the interest rates they still have management tools, other than draining the banks system of dollars. for years since the financial crisis, congressman paul, we have watched the central bank print trillion of

dollars. qe-1, qe-2, they did this instead of writing down the debt at the time and restructuring the debt at the time. instead they gave the banks and household debt of this country to the american government. so we find ourselves at this precipice. at the same time there's still talk and i said to play a sound bite that they might want to do more money printing qe-3, even as housing, jobs and the debt problems have not been helped by those activities. take a listen to the fed chairman. >> the possibility remains that the recent economic weakness may prove more persistent than expected and deflationary reemerge, implying a need for additional policy support. prudent planning requires we evaluate the efficacy of these for deploying additional stimulus if conditions warrant. >> why -- what is he thinking, in your view? >> well, he's just expressing what he's believed in. he ace written about, he's talked for so many years, that the fool for the fed and the

responsibility of the fed is to always print money and create credit and keep interest rates low. he's doing exactly what he said he would do. of course, they've been doing it like you pointed out, and today i asked him about that $5 trillion that was created. it's essentially identical to the increase of the navl debt. the position of many on his side of the argument is that we need more consumer spending. i suggested to him, yeah, but all this money didn't go to the consumers. it went to the big banks, to the corporations, and it went to the military/industrial complex. but if we had taken that $5 trillion, it comes out to $17,000 per individual. so if they really believed in this philosophy that, oh, if the consumer would only have the money and spend it, of course that wouldn't be good policy either, but i was trying to point out they're not serving the interests of the average person, they're serving the interesting of bailing out friends on wall street by us buying up the bad assets, and

the middle class and the poor really get dumped on, because they're the ones who have lost their jobs. >> and then the issues in washington go beyond the outer control package -- to support the incumbent structure. one other of your favorites is, and rightly so, the out-of-control nature of the tsa and homeland security. you and i did a half-hour podcast recently that we just published in afternoon and i want to play everything an excerpt of your thoughts, and i thought you were so articulate and elaborate why what we're seeing is so emblematic of an out-of-control congress. >> i think we should be regulating the federal reserve and bureau crass, because we've allowed ourselves to see what is happening at our airports. symbolically it's horrible. just think of this 95-year-old lady in a wheelchair being forced to get undressed.

i've been saying that if we -- if we accept that and we're not annoyed by it and we don't want to change it, i think we're in bad shape. >> how does the culture of the tsa reflect the dysfunction in our government? >> we've been taught to be tolerant, because after 9/11 people were saying giving up liberties are important to be safe, which i do not believe. but how far can we go? it's incremental. the other day there was an aninouncement that al qaeda might implant bombs within their skin, which means the tsa has to be even more aggressive. so those problems are getting worse. but i think it's a conviction that freedom doesn't mean that much to people. i mean, we accept central economic planning, we accept going to war carelessly without

the consent of the people and the congress. here we stand by and we say, we have to go on an airplane, it's annoying, but let's do it, but it's get pretty humiliating. a lot of people are getting upset. my point i was trying to make, if we don't become outraged, what will they do next? i do believe there are some who like to condition us to be humble servants, do exactly as they tell us, and be obedient to the state. that's not the kind of society i want to live in. >> me neither, congressman paul. i thank you for your efforts to provoke at the very least debate on these critical issues like monetary policy and the military. we'll talk to you sooner rather than later, i'm sure. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much. i do want to direction your attention on the ron paul subject to the newly revamped dylanratigan.com. our entire podcast on everything from the tsa to the debt ceiling, to the toxic political

atmosphere in washington. we cover all the big issues in depth, and you can hear it only and exclusively at dylan ratigan, or if you follow us on twitter at dylan ratigan. more big issues to cover right here on msnbc. on the dr show, our nation's capital, we know it's in crisis. even d.c. veterans say they've never seen the town in such turmoil. how do we break the cycle of dysfunction that's seized our government. also ahead the mortgage meltdown and debt disaster. barry ridholtz will be along. and the latest victim of the minnesota government shutdown -- smokers and beer drinkers. you're watching "the dylan ratigan show," only on msnbc. ben and his family live on this block. ben's a re/max agent, and he's a big part of this community. re/max agents know their markets, and they care enough to get to know you, too. nobody sells more real estate than re/max.

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the new bulb works like the old bulb. >> if we don't pass this bill, we might as well turn out the lights. the party is over for the traditional incandescent light bulb. >> i want to make it clear. i just want to make this clear, they aren't fighting about light bulb standards. they are refighting a light bulb standards fight that we settled in 2007. we're three weeks away from having to park our country down the street so china can't find it. and these yutzes are relitigated incandescent. we are like children. we are like children.

>> ah, the sadness is reason to laugh. clearly the state of affairs in washington summed up quite well by jake tapper who perhaps put it best with the following tweet -- i've been in d.c. for 20 years and i have to say this is a sorry spec cal of d.c. dysfunction. you may have a harsher sbirptation than jake. today's entire megapanel comes from d.c. jonathan capehart, and mark tap scott and jay. it's been suicide for both parties to even get to the point that we are now in. is there a path to political restitution for either party, as you see it right now, dave weigel? >> well, the debt ceiling debate is not a reason or cause for optimism. this move by mitch mcconnell in the last 24 hours looks a lot like a punt that's more of a

politics than about solving the problem. the way he put it in an interview this morning is he just doesn't want republicans to share ownership of the economic. >> in the scope, any litany of issues. is there something the democrats can do by virtue of the fact that the republicans have punted already where they can actually create something valuable? >> you know, dylan, i don't know, because in the negotiations, at least on the big deal, the big plan before speaker boehner walked out on it, you know, the president put a lot of things that the democrats thought were crazy for him to do, putting entitlements on the table to be up for discussion, just saying it was

too much for them. but the republicans won't put revenues on the table. i think what minority leader mitch mcconnell was trying to do was inokay late himself and his caucus from having to cast votes that would get them in trouble when they go back home. the problem is while folks in the senate might like it, we're already hearing that house republicans, particularly the 87 freshmen, those in the tea party, they're not going for it. they're not buying the mcconnell plan. they don't like it. >> mark, you get the last word here. you and i both know the reason this country is in debt is associated with lots of dysfunction in lots of things. we waste a ton of energy we buy that we shouldn't have to waste, our health care system is insane. ron paul just made the point that if you simply took the federal reserve subsidy for the banking system since the financial crisis out, you would eliminate a trillion 6 of the

debt. we could sit here and have debates about how to deal with the debt. do you have any sense that anything could happen to cause either of thinks political parties to have this conversation? >> i'm actually more optimistic, perhaps more optimistic, because i still have faith that the federalist system that we have is going to force in the final analysis either some kind of a livable compromise, or it will push the government into a situation where it has to make the kinds of decisions that our politicians don't have the guts to make at this point. i think either way that's going to come out, we're going to have a lot of pain ahead, and a lot of really difficult things will have to be done, but it's going to get done. >> all right. your optimism is welcome in this world. it's not just our country that's been kicking the can down the road when it comes to our mass i have been debt, let alone looking the other way to why we are accumulating such debt in

the first place. we're seeing the consequences of politicians in the world, most notably western europe. the latest country teetering on the bring now italy. these guys have a trillion 2 in debt that needs to be refinanced. the president and finance minister continue to bicker, blocking any path to the solution. meantime, ireland is the third country to have its bonds downgraded to junk, in other words people think they're less likely to pay them. italy and spain are teed up as we could not possibly create enough austerity or collect enough money in taxes to deal with the problem of the debt that we have. meanwhile, the only thing that could possibly help us is

restructuring the debt, restructuring the systems that create this debt domestically, that's not even on the table. how far do you think they're willing to take this, jonathan? in other words, the one thing that seems to be supporting everything is the ten-year bond yield stays under 3%, so for all the inflammatory rhetoric and the fear about italy, greece, whatever it may be, at the end of the day, those who finance our government, most notably the federal reserve, are happy to collect a pittance in payment. >> right. well, see, here's the thing, dylan, you probably know this better than i do, but remember when president obama said that he wanted to get this -- get whatever deal down by july 22nd to have congress vote on it, so that everything is in place by august 2nd? that's also a deadline the bond markets is looking at as when and if they take action.

so what the bond market does today is one thing, what it does a week from friday, or even monday the 24th, is when you really should take a look at what the bond mark is doing. moody's s&p, particularly moody's, they've already said if it doesn't look like there's any movement whatsoever toward a deal they -- by mid-july, that's a piece i left out, by mid-july, they are going to look at taking action against the u.s. rating, which could drop from a triple-a rating to a double-a rating which would have severe consequences for the u.s. economy. >> but would be very good for eric cantor's short position in the bond market. >> well, yeah. >> at least he's short the bond market. dave, have you heard anybody mention the subject of restructuring or cancelling the debt? >> it's come up, but the problem with this debate in washington

is that the two sides don't agree on the same facts. i think there are reasons for this. they wouldn't trust treasuries, wouldn't trust experts. you meet republicans who say, one, we can move this money around in a way that treasury says we can't. even when goldman sachs says we can, says it would be damaging, or two if we defaulted, it wouldn't be that bad. >> i'm saying restructure it, cancel it. i'm saying 1945, you owe $60 trillion and you've got $3, so guess who is not getting paid? the people who are owed $60 trillion. the sooner we wake up and smell the coffee, and i feel like no politician wants to have that conversation. >> 2340 we haven't heard much about that yet. i've heard it in the context of greece, but not in this context. so there's still an idea this is a way to get us to an austerity package, if we're optimistic, or a way to pass this onto barack

obama. i haven't heard many outside the box suggestions like what you're talking about. people -- peach -- look -- >> if it was inside the box it would be important. it was outside the box in 1939, it was inside the box in 1945. >> but the euro zone is so weak we have advantages they don't have. >> i understand. money printing is one thing. debt cancellation is another. stick around, guys. we'll switch from dead and madness in our own country to violence overseas. mayhem in the overnight in mumbai, a series of coordinated and deadly terror attacks rocking india's financial capital, and the strings go straight back to afghanistan and pakistan. that's coming up. [ male announcer ] at nissan, we test the altima's durability

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well, flash point in india, tensions rising syria as well, 21 dead, 100 blood yesterday after a coordinated attack in mumbai. a mass set of confusion this

hour to who's to blame. police looking into the indian mujahedeen. also a suspicion on militant grew ups that led a sewage in '08. today three blasts hit during the rush hour, just days after the seven-year anniversary of the train bombings in which 180 were killed. riva, what should we know about this? >> about the attack. if you just look at the tactics themselves, you can see that this attack didn't involve any suicide attackers. all the explosive devices were placed remotely where they could be detonated remotely. the death toll isn't very high. it looks to be the group of a group called india mujahedeen, we're still looking for the claim, overall not the skill of the mumbai attackers that were

linked you will with more of the al qaeda, working through other groups like that. >> i want to bring the panel in as well. put what's going on in the context of current american diplomacy with pakistan and how that ties back to american diplomatic efforts. >> yeah, the attack comes at a critical juncture, especiallies the united states is trying to accelerate its withdrawal from afghanistan. to do that, it needs pakistan. specifically pakistani intelligence, and right now oar going to see the indians place on the terrorism front to try to get the united states to do that, but the united states has a very delicate relationship right now to maintain with spark tan, and india's likely going to be disappointed with us, and

already ununnerved by the idea of the u.s. and pakistan negotiating a deal that could leave the ichbdance vulnerable on a national security front. >> dave, one last question, away from india, what is going on with the assassination of karzai's brother, and do we know who did that? there's speculation of everybody from the cia to drug lords to the taliban. >> absolutely. that speculation is still runs. it's not clear whether his absence will have that big of a stabilizing effect. from the united states point of view karzai's brother caused a lot of problems, he was always playing a double game, but he managed a lot of relationships. he had the charisma to maintain that network. for karzai. that was crucial. you can see how karzai really needed a counterbalance to the taliban when it came to now we

have to see who can fill that void try to manage those relationship nots to mention the lucrative narcotics routes to try to maintain the piece while u.s. forces are there. more importantly, though, the real focus we have is the u.s./pakistani negotiation and whether pakistan can come through in developing some sort of accommodate with the taliban that would allow the u.s. to disengage. >> dave, go ahead. >> what is the impact of the united states drawing down in afghanistan? i'm talking about police actions and espionage, which we can pursue anyway. what is the impact of us drawing down troops? we're not going to draw down to zero, but how are we helping when we have a larger presence in afghanistan? >> it's very easy to see how the

u.s. could maintain a special operations force, maintain the intelligence assets to ensure if you don't have another rise of al qaeda-type elements, again to sort of contain the jihadist threats. overall the pakistanis have the -- the pakistanis don't have the luxury of leaving this region, the united states does, and i think that's a very hard discussion, that the united states is having with pakistan right now, something that pakistan is coming to terms with, slowly but surely. >> go ahead, mark. >> i'm curious of your assessment in syria. if he survives, what does that mean for us? >> i don't think that al assad is at a break point. certainly the regime is stressed, but we have not seen

the core pillars of that the they have held together, and that means that the army has held together. we haven't seen those large splits that would indicate this regime is on the verge of collapse. so even as the pressure is rising, i think bashar al assad can ride it out. over the longer term he'll face more threats, but will figure a ways to create a pleuralalistic system, but remember the alloits, they only been in power for some 40-odd years, that's not a long time. this is an existential fight for them. in the not going to go away any time soon. >> jonathan? >> when the protests were going on in egypt, lots of folks thought we were going to see a beginning of a historic, forward movement towards more democracy,

however it is defined in the middle east, but it seems it has cooled. from your vantage point, do you think that things are moving -- still moving forward, albeit at a more slow pace? >> it doesn't really surprise us at stratfor. the egyptian military regime wants to get back to ruling rather than governing. whether the elections take place or delayed to november. >> i wish we could british you into these conversations to talk about, i don't know, things that were joyous in summary. we could talk about fishing strings or something like this, but unfortunately your expertise is in a region and an area that is very concerning and wen that

we are critically interested in and better informed because of you, and i pressure your time to talk to all of us. >> thank you, dylan. reva bhalla. always a pleasure. jonathan, mark and dave, thank you, gentlemen. up next, we will lighten the mood a touch and find out why it's miller time-out for the folks in minnesota.

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well, they have finally done it. the shutdown has led to a truly unforgivable casualty. they failed to renew the brand registration. that is threatening to deliver a silver bullet to the beer business. it's now essentially illegal for miller to label its cans and bottles. as such, all in all, 39 brands get the hook, which means no more miller miller lite, no more

blue monday or bang well beer, no more milwaukee's best. you probably won't miss the beast, but no banquet beer? i probably don't know what that is. it follows news that hundreds of bars and liquor stores have been unable to renew their $20 alcohol purchasing cards, which means we're staring at a pending short arrange not only do they have to watch the twins, but they can't even drink away their sorrows in the process. coming up, connecting the dots, this would make you want to drink. so i was the guy who was never going to have the heart attack. i thought i was invincible. i'm on an aspirin regimen now because i never want to feel that helplessness again. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. talk to your doctor, and take care of what you have to take care of. thought they were dead.

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failure to modify loans. that is the tip of an iceberg to a raft of potential fraudulent loans that currently sit inside the federal government, thus causing us to hit the debt ceiling "the washington post" reporting that the five biggest lenders will be asked to pay a settlement on a multitrillion dollar prosh. in exchange they'll pledge to do better -- >> can't do worse -- >> you cannot do worse when you comes to practices. in exchange they'll be absolved

of any wrongdoing in the aspects of the crisis if it wasn't so outrageous -- if it wasn't a tv show, i would be yelling and screaming, but i have to behave in a manner that's reasonably appropriate most of the time, so i maintain my exposures, on the brink of disasters because of the actions of these individuals. barry is joining us. why is a proposal like this so insulting? >> how much time do we have? it lets people who helped create the whole crisis off the hook. it lets people who knowingly engaged in criminality, knowingly engaged in fraud, it's just write a check, you want to murder, rape, rampage, as long as you can write a check for a couple billion which, by the way, we gave them. we've given all these companies much more money than they're paying in fines, so ultimately

we find ourselves in a situation that nothing is going to be prevented from happening in the future. >> let's talk about the firing of the investigators in florida. >> unbelievable. >> we all know it's home for the medicare fraud industrial complex, but also home to the fraud closure housing -- >> robo-signing, that's the ground zero, all the foreclosure mills down there. all the parts of the country hit by the worst of the real estate bust, south florida, vegas, california really the worst zones. so you have these two investigators who did yeoman's work finding out who was engaged in criminality. >> naming names, getting the documents. >> put together. there's a seminal piece that went out, a powerpoint that explained exactly here is how the fraud happened, here's how it was done, the florida ag decided, for whatever reason, we're going to fire these

people. >> newly electedisms this is just shameful. if i was in florida, i would start a recall motion immediately. this is absolutely unacceptable. >> the biggest story in america obviously is the debt ceiling, will we default? will we not default? should we raise taxes? should we cut funding for poor people no one seems to want to talk about how we got -- you've done tremendous cover with your book "bailout nation" and also before, going back to the 1990s and then connecting the dots between that household debt to ultimately the banks. so now the banks end up with this debt at which point the ratings agencies go and say you're ensuring the debts, that's the aig sundays, blah blah blah, and we give the bank debt to uncle sam and wonder how this could happen. >> i've been writing a lot about the two economists who warned

about this back in january 2008. this is before bear stearns, before lehman, before everything. they said, prepare yourself, credit crises cause very severe dislocations in stock markets, in real estate markets, but it also really causes a huge increase in debt because on a government level, tax revenues drop, unemployment goes up, and then there's always an attempt to throw money at it. it's not necessarily all the money that's spent on the bailout, which was a substantial sum, though less than originally believed. it's just suddenly the economy grinds to a halt, but the expenditures keep going. >> unemployment goes up, house values go down, which means less tax money. >> and all of this ends up on sungle sam. even things like madoff, uncle sam has to cover. on top of all that, you have the bailouts and everything else. don't forget fannie and freddie have become the back-door

bailouts for the banks that very likely will be a couple hundred billion as they off-load their bad mortgages to fannie and freddie, who really are the only game in town. >> is there any way to solve the debt problems of our country that doesn't include cancelling debt? >> yes, there's a slow, painful way. we missed the first opportunity, which is to take insolvent banks, put them into, you know -- like what we did with general motors, put them into a prepackaged bankruptcy. we missed that window. now what we're stuck with is this bad debt and the question is who will eat it? is it going to be the banks? the taxpayers? the bondholders? i suspect it would be us taxpayers and not the banks or bondholders? >> why? >> just because wall street pretty much owns congress, that if you look at what's been going on, we were talking earlier, the democrats are completely inept, and it takes the republicans to be so far out in left field to make the inept democrats look

good, that's what we have in d.c., there is no leadership. it's let's see which way the wind is blowing, someone has to grow a spine and say this is wrong, we have to put a stop to this, and so far no one has cup up and done that. i'm talking about the congress and white house, there's a dearth of leadership missing. and ron paul said we have to change the direction of the wind? >> well, so far nothing has been able to do that. >> listen, a delight to see you. happy summer to you. >> same here. pleasure to see you again. >> bare aryholtz, coming up on "hardball," chris is asking whether the government is too big to fail, but first til debt do us party, millions of family struggling to balance their checkbooks and relationships. some advice after this. >> announcer: this past year alone there's been a 67% spike in companies embracing the cloud-- big clouds, small ones, public, private,

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considering the massive unemployment rate, the sputtering job market and it is sense of betrayal, frequently with people with their own employers, how do you maintain your personal relationships and family relationships when it is you in these dire straits? columnest for thestreet.com and clinical director for a large treatment center here in new york city. welcome back. >> thanks for having me. >> obviously the whole thing, party until the money runs out i think is the song. the money seems to be running out, and surely the trust in the system.

as they question who they're spending their time with. what's going on? >> two weeks ago we had this great talk about happiness not being for sale, how we're not supposed to equate self-worth with net worth. certainly we're being tested. we're talking about a great majority of the workforce is unemployed, underemployed, or so goods gruntled and so disenfranchised that they're no longer, that's not to mention those who are fully employed whose workweeks are turning into 50 and 60 hours. in short we feel del trayed by our employers. we don't feel supported by them. where do we look for support? we look for support with our loved ones. which changes the dynamics the personal relationships. we have to be very careful getting into marriage, getting into having a long-term girlfriend or boyfriend, that we're choosing a spouse or a

committed partner for the right reasons. >> define right reasons. >> trust and loyalty. i think it's wonderful whether you're sexually attracted to someone, sharing similar activities and interesting, but to me, those are -- those are important, but knowing someone will be there regardless of whether your paycheck is rising, regardless of whether you lose your job, regardless of whether you have to downsize, i think that's invaluable. i think too often we seek the superficial reasons to get together rather than focusing on what ratherly matters and that someone will be there for us. >> what you're suggesting is these type of stresses exposed those type of superficial relationship? >> i think they expos what was already there, but what an opportunity for us to reexamine what we want out of a loved one, what we want out of a spouse. >> it's almost like they talk -- there's the famous warren

buffett saying, that when the tide recedes, you see who's not wearing pants, and that that was bernie madoff, and you got to see -- almost like an emotional equivalent, when the tide recedes, you see which relationship is not wearing pants. >> is this a woman who needs a house in the hamptons and oasis, will they need tiffany jewels? or is this someone going to be fine living a life where they don't have to spend excessive money, where they can rely on the bare necessities of life. >> doesn't that go back to self-worth/net worth? not about the nature of the relationship, it's -- it all goes to the whole core of personal identity, and what do we value? what do we seed as important? >> your argument is the stresses of what's going on, the disruptions in our economy are forcing people to deal with the hard realities of what their actual lives and values may be at this point. >> and i think your point was rite on. it exacerbates what might

already be there. what i want to help people is to choose partners for the right reasons now, but often it shows what was wrong to begin with. much like the alcoholic or drug addict who self-med indicates when they lose their job. they're trying so hard to take care of the problems that were originally there through alcohol, through drugs, but they reveal a greater truth, which is that they people, who have lost their job, who are looking for work, are relies on someone to support them, regardless of how much money they make. that's a very hard concept for people to get sometimes. sometimes i think the idea of who president to be with is better than the actual person, you know what i mean? >> i'm afraid i do. i think many of us have had that experience. >> this reveals that. >> warren buffett a wise man beyond money, i suppose.